UNLV journalism professor dies

Barbara Cloud, a longtime journalism professor at UNLV, has died. She was 71.

Cloud was a professor emeritus at the university, having served there since 1979. She was the associate provost for academic affairs from 1998 to 2003. She specialized in journalism history.

Her husband, Stan Cloud, also 71, was a physics professor at the university. He said his wife suffered a cerebral hemorrhage last week and died on Christmas Eve.

"Barbara's greatest pleasures were travel, history and writing," he said.

The two had been married for 49 years. They met when she was a student at Stanford University.

Longtime University of Nevada, Las Vegas journalism professor Mary Hausch said Barbara Cloud recruited her to the university.

"I owe her my career," said Hausch, who joined UNLV nearly 20 years ago after serving as an editor at the Review-Journal.

She said Cloud was a dedicated educator but occasionally could show a little flash. She bought a Corvette when she was in her 60s.

"People considered her a conservative sort of person; she was very quiet and reserved," Hausch said. "But the Corvette showed another side of her personality."

Before joining UNLV, Cloud was a reporter at newspapers in Oregon and in Idaho, where she grew up.

She was a freelance journalist in Los Angeles and a public relations consultant.

She published several books, served as president of the American Journalism History Association and received several awards for her work.

Cloud had been president of the UNLV Phi Kappa Phi honorary society and was key to the establishment of the Kappa Tau Alpha chapter.

She was teaching a class on women and the media and researching a biography of "Pop" Squires, a Las Vegas newspaper pioneer, when she died.

She is survived by her husband and her sister, Laura McMurray of Yakima, Wash.

A memorial is planned for the UNLV campus but has not yet been scheduled.

Donations may be made in her memory to Three Square food bank, Nevada Humanities or the UNLV Women's Studies Program.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.